Script Timer
Paste a video script and see how long it takes to say out loud. A 60-second Short is about 150 spoken words; this counts yours and tells you whether it fits, using the same 2.5-words-per-second figure ViralMint's own voiceover pipeline quotes with. No sign-up, nothing uploaded.
How many words is a 60-second script?
About 150 words. Natural narration runs at roughly 2.5 words per second, so a 60-second Short or Reel needs 140–160 words of actual spoken content, a 30-second clip needs about 75, and a 15-second hook-driven video needs about 38. Those are ceilings, not targets — leaving a few seconds of headroom is what lets you pause after the hook instead of racing the clock. Scripts written to be read on a page almost always run long when spoken, because written sentences are longer than spoken ones.
Why your recorded voiceover runs longer than the word count suggests
Pauses. A raw word count can't see them, and they add up faster than most people expect: every sentence break, comma and paragraph gap buys the listener a beat, and a script with twenty sentences can carry several seconds of breathing room on top of the words themselves. Numbers, acronyms and long proper nouns also take longer to say than their length implies — "2026" is four characters and three or four syllables. If your delivery consistently overruns, cut sentences rather than words: shorter sentences read faster and sound more spoken.
Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts work differently
Words-per-second is the wrong unit for languages that don't separate words with spaces. CJK text runs at roughly 3.5 characters per second, so a 400-character Chinese script is around two minutes of speech — several times the duration of a 400-character English one. This calculator detects CJK characters and switches to a per-character estimate automatically, which is the same adjustment ViralMint's narration chunker makes before it sends text to a text-to-speech engine.
Turning the script into a finished video
ViralMint is a free open-source desktop app that takes a script and produces the finished short: an AI voice (or a clone of your own, generated entirely on your machine), word-by-word captions, matched b-roll and background music. It quotes duration with the same calculation this page uses, so what you plan here is what it renders. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.
Frequently asked questions
How many words is a 60-second video script?
About 150 words at a natural narration pace of roughly 2.5 words per second. Fast, energetic delivery pushes that to ~180; a slow, deliberate read drops it to ~120. For a 30-second Short aim for ~75 words, and for a 15-second hook-driven clip aim for ~38.
How accurate is this estimate?
It uses 2.5 words per second — the same constant ViralMint's own voiceover pipeline uses to quote length before it generates audio, measured against real TTS output. Actual duration varies with pauses, punctuation and the voice you pick, typically within about 10%. Numbers, acronyms and long proper nouns take longer to speak than their character count suggests.
Does the estimate work for languages other than English?
The words-per-second figure is tuned for English and other space-separated languages. Chinese, Japanese and Korean don't work the same way — they run at roughly 3.5 characters per second, so a 400-character Chinese script is around two minutes of speech — far longer than a 400-character English one. This tool counts characters for CJK text and words otherwise.
Why does my recorded voiceover run longer than the estimate?
Almost always pauses. Sentence breaks, commas and paragraph gaps add up fast — a script with 20 sentences carries several seconds of breathing room that a raw word count can't see. Reading a written-for-the-page script aloud also slows you down; scripts written to be spoken use shorter sentences and contractions.
How do I turn a script into an actual voiceover?
ViralMint's free desktop app takes a script and produces the finished audio or video: an AI voice (or your own cloned voice, running entirely on your machine), word-by-word captions, b-roll and music. The duration it quotes uses the same calculation as this page.